Voice and Shadow
by MegaBadBunny
Summary: What if the Hostess did not sacrifice herself, and the Entity survived? What would happen to the Doctor, Donna, and Rose? A Doctor Who: Midnight AU.
1. Repetition

-Repetition-

It takes roughly five hours, twenty minutes, and forty-eight seconds for the Entity to destroy the population of the Leisure Palace.

Oh, it doesn't get everyone. The director of facilities enables an emergency protocol and a fair number of guests are able to escape via shuttles, screaming and pushing their way past the hundreds of people already taken by the Entity. But more importantly—yes, the Doctor will acknowledge how selfish he is in prioritizing her safety above the others, and no, he doesn't care—Donna is safe. Donna and the several dozen people she manages to coax into the TARDIS seventeen minutes and forty-six seconds into the slaughter. Donna and the people who tried to kill the Doctor. He knows Donna is not happy that they number among the survivors. She hates them. He can see it in her face when she ushers them in through the open doors, one hand extended to the Doctor in wait. Tears stream from her eyes as she alternately pleads with and shouts insults at him.

_Oi what are you doing just standing there get in here get in here now Doctor please why won't you move just move move move_

The Doctor repeats her words exactly as she says them. He can't stop himself. His voice is a slave to someone or something else. His words are no longer his.

He wants to tell her to go without him. It's too late for him anyway. He can't save her or the rest of them; can't even save himself. But he just stands there, rooted to the spot, his body unable to obey the electrical signals shooting from his brain, his mouth unable to give voice to his words. Something stops him. Hijacks the signals. Shorts the fuse. Breaks the circuit. His neural transmitters flicker like the broken lights blinking above, alternately casting the landing bay in light and dark. Synapses fire uselessly, and his treacherous body is silent. All he can do is watch her, and tremble, and hope.

The tourbus passengers pull Donna away from the TARDIS doors. She doesn't make it easy for them. Kicking and screaming until her face flushes red and purple. Jethro, Biff, and the professor latch to her arms and legs and shoulders and bodily drag her back. If the doors were made of wood, Donna's fingernails would leave ten tiny jagged gashes in them. Ten tiny wounds bleeding chips of blue paint.

_What are you doing get off me get your bloody hands off can't you see it's got him I've got to help him_

The Doctor echoes Donna and feels his legs start to move. Muscles pulling taut, pistons pumping, blood thundering. Plimsolls slapping loudly against marble floor, propelling him forward at 38.2 kilometers per hour. Apparently the thing inside him wants inside the TARDIS after all. He begs his body. _Stay still. Don't go. Keep her safe._ His limbs don't listen.

His hand reaches out. He sees Donna inside, three men still holding her back. She reaches back to him as the distance closes between them, as Dee Dee and the hostess lunge for the doors. The Doctor's fingers outstretch toward Donna in increments, his motion made choppy by seizure lights flashing overhead. He is almost inside, and she's still screaming at him.

_I'll save you Doctor don't worry I'll come back_ they both shout.

The TARDIS doors slam shut when his hand is just centimeters away.

His hand mashes against the doors and his body slams after, Newton's first law hard at work. It takes approximately two and a half seconds for the hurt to blossom through him. Four minor contusions on his face and forearm, two broken fingernails, three minute fractures in his distal and middle phalanges. The Doctor feels the pain from miles away.

He hears Donna beating on the other side of the door, fists pummeling, throat shrieking. His own hand reaches up like a marionette on a string, fumbles clumsily for the TARDIS doors. Pain lances through him when his wounded fingers grasp the handles. He wonders if the Entity can feel it. If the Entity likes it. If that is the whole point of this. Feel. Hurt. Fear.

The TARDIS doors do not budge. If he could, the Doctor would breathe a sigh of relief. He gives silent thanks to his wonderful ship. She understands. She can feel the thing inside him. Can sense it, even if he can't, even if all he feels is a great black hole where his frontal and parietal lobes should be.

A tiny flame of hope sparks up in his chest. The TARDIS will keep Donna and the others safe. And eventually, someone will come to rescue him and the rest of the Leisure Palace. Someone always does, even if "someone" isn't him. Someone, somehow.

Five hours, three minutes, and two seconds later, the rest of the Leisure Palace is dead.

* * *

Silence has fallen on the cavernous marble hall. Deep and dark, descending like a blanket of thick, suffocating velvet. Like a shroud. The lights still flicker above, weakly now, casting strange jagged shadows in the moonlight. The shadows form teeth-shapes on the floor, maws opening when the lights are on, gnashing closed when the lights are off.

The Doctor has not moved much from his spot in front of the TARDIS. The Entity has not allowed him. He can only guess it wants him to stand guard over his ship, to catch anyone who might try to sneak out, while it uses Sky's body to do its dirty work elsewhere in the Palace. He doesn't know—he can't access the Entity's thoughts, and it doesn't care to speak.

It has his body and he doesn't even know what it is. That hardly seems like a fair exchange.

He stares ahead, blinking much too slowly and infrequently for a member of his species. His eyelids feel gritty. And he's in fit enough shape, but he knows his legs will start to cramp soon. Pain pulses dully in his fingertips in time with his heartsbeat. Blood pumps sluggishly through his veins and cavitations form in his joints, tiny vacuum-bubbles manifesting in his synovial fluids, building up pressure that makes him long to stretch and pop his neck and elbows and non-damaged fingers. He wonders if the Entity is capable of understanding the signals his body is sending his brain right now, screaming at him to move, to sit, to lie down. Nearly five and a half hours is a long time for anybody to stand still.

His head doesn't even turn at the sound of Sky approaching. Her footfalls echo through the empty and quiet Palace. The lights stop shuddering above her as she passes under them. They blink out completely. Utter blackness approaches like a storm on slow winds. Sky's steps echo louder and louder as she nears him, and the Doctor's hearts hammer frantically in his throat. At least in that small way, his body is still his. Pounding hearts and working bypass and sweating glands.

And he can still hope. That tiny flame hasn't been extinguished just yet.

Sky stops in front of him, the cragged mountains of her face illuminated by a single beam of moonlight. She watches him, eyes unblinking. She waits.

* * *

Some time passes by. (Nine minutes and twelve seconds, to be precise. The Doctor feels each millisecond pound between them, couldn't have heard it louder if a giant clock was in their midst.) The Doctor starts to grow impatient. What is she doing? Why is she just standing there?

It dawns on him, then. The Entity, whatever or whoever it is, is a mimic. A thief. It steals the words and thoughts of others. But if it already has the only two living beings available in its possession, unable to act on their own, then there's nothing else to take. And what is a thief with nothing to steal?

If there is no one around to mimic, then what can the Entity do?

The Doctor would smile smugly if he could. Yes, it will be unpleasant to stand here until his body gives out. It will be horrible. Long and drawn-out and painful. And he doesn't much fancy looking into Sky's eyes as her body shuts down; the real Sky has been braindead for several hours now, but a body dying of starvation is never a pretty sight. But the Entity won't get to Donna, and it won't get anyone or anywhere else. Likely it will be pushed from his mind when he regenerates, thereupon he can pilot the TARDIS and take its occupants home. Though he hates to give this incarnation up, it will be worth it if it means the universe is safe from this thing.

Besides. This face only really meant anything to one person. And it's not like she'll ever see it again anyway.

He thinks it's a grim thing to hope for death, even if it's only a half-death, but it's better than no hope at all. And so he settles, prepares to retreat and wait for the end. Maybe if he's lucky, his brain will lose consciousness before things get too bad, and he'll wake up in a fresh new body with only one mind occupying it. Maybe this time he'll be ginger.

Well, might as well make the best of it, he reasons. He's got some time to kill.

_To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow/ Creeps in this petty pace from day to day/ To the last syllable of recorded time/ And all our yesterdays have lighted fools/ The way to dusty death_

Blimey, that's a bit dark. He's very glad Martha got to see something more cheerful than that.

_Out, out, brief candle!/ Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/ And then is heard no more_

He blinks. He doesn't mean to; it's a reflex, his body responding on automatic to environmental stimuli. Sky has shifted. She's tilting her head now, eyes wide and trained on him, like an owl watching a mouse.

The Doctor wants to roll his eyes and ask _What now?_ but his tongue is thick and trapped behind a cage of teeth. Until suddenly it isn't.

"The signal's coming from there," leaks from between his lips. His voice is soft, but it cuts through the quiet like a hot knife through butter.

Sky smiles, and slips back into the shadows.

"Yes that's it that's it right there oh my god we've found it," the Doctor says tonelessly. "Can we get in though the doors are really thick maybe we can drill we don't have time we'll just use this."

Fear prickles the Doctor's scalp and the blood drains from his face. Who is the Entity mimicking? Whose voice is the Entity stealing? It's no one from the TARDIS—her shields are too good for that—but surely no one else would try to get in here. The place is shut down, sealed off in quarantine when the director activated the emergency protocol. Why would anybody else want to get inside?

Why is Sky hiding?

He hears a door slide open at the end of the hangar; light floods in and paints the opposite wall in a glaze of yellow-white. Three shadows stand stark against the brightness and the Doctor hears three voices murmuring behind him.

"Down there. I see it. Oh my god that's him. Go get her," he says without turning to look at the intruders. He speaks just a half-pace after them. His voice begins to take form, begins to mimic the tones and intonations of the newcomers more precisely as they approach. "Jesus, it's really him," one of them says, and he repeats, and the Doctor recognizes the voice he's parroting.

_It is a tale told by an idiot_

He doesn't bother with the why or the how of Mickey Smith appearing in the wrong universe at just the wrong time, doesn't worry about how _that's fucking impossible_, doesn't even know if Mickey and his team are real or if he's hallucinating or if his brain is already dying, but he does try to shout. To wave his arms. To do something, anything, to tell Mickey and his group to stay away. His arms are lead weights and his feet are anchored and his jaw wired shut. Mickey edges ever-closer with two other people in Torchwood fatigues, people the Doctor doesn't know and can't warn.

_Full of sound and fury_

"Are you all right?" one of the team members asks the Doctor, and the Doctor repeats.

"Why are you doing that?" asks the other, and the Doctor echoes.

Mickey walks up close to the Doctor, peering in his eyes, searching for any hint of recognition. The Doctor's eyes do not follow him very well; it's about the only part of his body he can really control, and that shred of control is tenuous at best. Mickey hovers around the edges of his periphery like a ghost. The Doctor wishes he was happy to see Mickey, would be elated under any other circumstances, but right now, all he can think is _please get out get out get out GET OUT_.

"Doctor, can you hear me?" he asks. (_Doctor, can you hear me?_ the Doctor follows syllable-for-syllable, lilt-for-lilt.)

"Of course he can hear us, he's saying everything we do," one of the team members points out ("…everything we do…" follows the Doctor). "Maybe he's traumatized by whatever happened here," the other team member reasons, and the Doctor does too.

Mickey shines his torch directly into the Doctor's eyes, and it _hurts_, and the Doctor doesn't flinch at all.

"I don't know," Mickey and the Doctor both say. Mickey looks worried. His eyes shift back behind the Doctor, to the fourth agent walking quickly toward them.

_Signifying_

"What do you think, Rose?" Mickey asks.

If there is any particle of doubt clinging in the Doctor's mind about the loss of control over his own body, it dissipates in the moment he doesn't choke on Rose's name.

He hears the plastic sound of moving leather and a soft intake of breath as she steps into his field of vision, filling his sight with blonde hair and brown eyes and questioning lips and everything quintessentially her. She is thinner than she once was, her body lean and strong, and she wears a leather jacket just like his ninth incarnation, but it's her. In the flesh. Unmistakable and real.

Rose Tyler.

Rose_._

His hearts flutter painfully in his chest at the sight of her. The dread he felt upon hearing Mickey's voice was nothing compared to the terror that fills him now. He curses himself for his stupidity—how could he think that Mickey the Idiot would make it back to this universe if she wasn't with him? The Doctor thinks that what he feels should be torn out of him and submitted to Webster's as the very definition of bittersweet, emphasis on the bitter. He silently rails against the universe and any gods that would be cruel enough to send her here right now, and his last fading ember of hope dies somewhere deep inside.

_Nothing_

She's going to be killed right in front of him. She came all this way just to die.

Rose looks the Doctor up and down. Her expression is difficult to decipher. But she definitely doesn't look happy.

"Knock him out," she commands.

The Doctor doesn't have time to repeat it.

* * *

\- to be continued -


	2. Synchronization

\- Synchronization -

Bright, is the first thing the Doctor thinks as his eyes slowly open, heavy curtains sliding over dim and dusty windows.

Bright. Hurt. Alone.

The Doctor's head pulses with pain. The blinding light in the room lances his visual receptors. Traces of tranquilizer linger in his blood, unwelcome guests loitering long after the party is over. He wants to close his eyes but they want to wander, glazing over a grey room—pale grey-paneled walls, ceiling, floor. A single door. Just a shade darker than white. Industrial-looking. Medicinal, almost. No, not almost; his senses trickle back in and he hears the beeping of a heart-rate monitor, smells antiseptic ointment and astringent cleaner.

He feels an IV in his wrist and an oximeter on a nonbroken finger. Feels velcro restraints cinched tight on his arms and legs. Tastes the bitter plastic of a gag in his mouth.

The beeping of the heart-rate monitor increases in rhythm as he realizes he's trapped twice over. He can't turn his head to get a good look at anything, but he knows perfectly well where he is. He's in a UNIT lab. He's sitting strapped to a padded chair, one that he suspects is normally reserved for interrogations.

Seems a bit superfluous. It's not like he can move anyway, not unless the Entity wants him to.

His eyes complete their journey around the room and he notices that the wall opposite him has one panel that is larger, darker, and shinier than the rest. It's a one-way window. Or at least that's what it's supposed to be. He can almost see through it, can make out dim ghost-shapes moving in the dark.

Someone is watching him.

Whoever it is, they're clever enough to soundproof everything—soundproof completely. He can't hear a thing happening outside this room. Can't hear anything over the heart-rate monitors or his breathing or the quiet buzz-whine of the noise-cancellation device that's hard at work blocking everything past the window and door. At least that's something.

He wonders what UNIT has planned. Really, they should probably just kill him. He wonders how long it will take them to figure that out.

The Doctor notices his heartsrate slowing, the relentless _bleep-bleep bleep-bleep_ of the monitor trickling off. A faucet that drips less and less each second. A millisecond later, he feels a new round of tranquilizer entering his veins. Too much tranquilizer, maybe. Several milligrams too many. An overdose. This is it, then. They've arrived at the same conclusion he has. They're killing him to prevent contagion. Sacrificing one to save the rest. His heartsrate slows to a dangerous plod and as his eyes start to close, he thinks he sees the one-way window in front of him vibrating, like someone is hitting it. It flexes in and out a few times. A breathing thing. A living entity.

Darkness closes in on him again, and he feels very warm. He hopes the regeneration will be quick this time. He wants to run back to the TARDIS, throw the doors open and see Donna grinning up at him from the console, safe and sound. He wants to make sure the thing inside Sky never hurts anyone else ever again. And he wants to know if Rose is really here. But he's 99% certain he imagined that bit—well, maybe 98%—well, maybe closer to 97%—well, there are lots of blonde white women in the world. No reason to go pulling them from other universes as well.

All the same—while he's daydreaming, and since his brain is shutting down anyway—he wonders what she will think of his new face.

* * *

_Doctor! What did you do to him?_

_Donna—Donna, please. It's not really him. I mean, I think he's still in there, at least I hope he is, but he's not the only one._

_But he didn't do anything. He just stood in front of the TARDIS the whole time. It was that lady that did it. You should be going after her!_

_Yeah, we're looking for her, but right now we've got to help the Doctor, Donna. You understand? We have to take precautions._

_Oh, I'll give you precautions, blondie! I'll...wait. Wait. How do you know my name? Who the hell are you? And how did you open the TARDIS?_A light flashing in the dark. Metal sound. Metal smell. Ringing ears.

_I've been tracking you both for a while, Donna Noble._

_Who. The hell. Are you?_

Earlier than that. Rewinding. Tape flying by on a reel. Be kind please re—

_Get out of the way!_

_No, I won't. Nobody else is going to die on this bus._

_If we don't do it, we're all gonna die!_

_Look, we don't know that, all right? Tell them, Miss._

_Dee Dee?_

Reluctance. _She's right. We don't have conclusive evidence. Two points make a line—they don't make a pattern._

_Oh, drivel—_

_Professor, please. What if the Doctor was right? What if this is some kind of new life? It might not understand. Maybe this whole thing was a big accident or misunderstanding. Maybe mimicking is the only thing it can do. And we've all been so upset and frightened—_

_And look at Sky. _Jethro is quiet again. Thinking. Mumbles. _She's not talking anymore since we all calmed down. She seems almost...normal, now..._

A hop, skip, and a jump.

_...now Will and Ripley are doing it too. Rose, I don't like it anymore than you do. But you saw what happened back there. All those people._

_I mean, I guess we don't know it was him. Or the thing inside him. Or whatever. But we just don't know, Rose._

_Rose, I don't think we've got a choice. _

His subconscious is working overtime, pressing tracing-paper over an empty notepad, side-shading with a pencil to pick up impressions left behind. Swirls and loops and numbers. White marks in the graphite. A roadmap for memory.

_You're not gonna cut him apart like a bloody science project._

_Miss Noble, no one is suggesting that. _This is a voice he doesn't know. Deep and unctuous, in a good way. Like a plum. From far away, his stomach rumbles. _We need to know what's got him._

_Do I like look I'm flipping interested in what's got him? I don't care what it is. I just want to get it out. Look, blondie here gets it. And is anyone going to tell me her name, or what? Do I have to guess? God, you're just as bad as he is!_

His memory skips stones in reverse.

_In a few minutes, the rescue shuttle will be here. They'll take us back to the Leisure Palace. We've got medical there. They'll look at Sky and the Doctor. Find out what's wrong with them._

_Maybe it's nothing at all. Maybe it's just mass hysterics. Sort of thing happens all the time, doesn't it, Biff?_

_Yeah. Yeah. You're right. You read about it in the papers. Bus gets torn apart, big shocking event like that, people go a little mad. Brain's a funny thing, innit?_

Most times the Doctor's a big fan of boundless optimism. This is not one of those times.

_Oh, my god. It's probably nothing, isn't it? We got all worked up over nothing—and we almost—we almost—_

_Hush, love. It's all right. We'll wait._

_Agreed. We'll wait._

And now the roller coaster lurches backward over the chasm and it seems like the car is going to fall off the line but there's a hidden track up above that goes past a flashing camera that posts an embarrassing photo at the end of the ride showing the passengers screaming at the snarling animatronic monster

_Both vessels are ready. Rose, do you really think we can save him? What are you gonna do?_

A pause. Finger on the remote. Waiting to hit "play" again.

_Whatever it takes._

* * *

This is the second time in his very long life that the Doctor wakes up actually disappointed to be not-dead. But at least his ninth incarnation had Rose and Jack to look forward to. And at least he had full use over his body. This flesh and blood prison and its invisible jailor makes the Doctor want to scream.

The window's grey façade blinks away, and the Doctor is able to view his observers. Donna is the first person he notices, pointing and shouting at all of the other people in the white-lit room beyond. Her finger pushes the button that controls the opacity of the window. She wants the Doctor to be able to see them all, for some reason. The Doctor can't imagine what that reason would be.

The Doctor looks from person-to-person in the small control booth. Donna, her cheeks flushed and her mouth pinched in anger, talks to Mickey and a Black UNIT officer, a woman with "Magambo" on her nametag. Dee Dee and Professor Hobbes from the tour bus listen in. Professor Hobbes nods at everything Mickey says. Dee Dee shakes her head and argues. They all talk too rapidly for the Doctor to read their lips. Or perhaps that's the tranquilizer muddying his brain. Flooding it with fog and cotton.

The two unfamiliar Torchwood agents are conspicuously absent.

_Will and Ripley are doing it too_

Only one person is not actively engaged in the conversation, and that person is Rose. She leans against the edge of a table, her arms crossed and her eyes glazed over. She is lost in thought. The Doctor watches her as she thinks. She doesn't bite her lower lip or chew on a cuticle or slip out a peek of pink tongue like she used to. One hand plays with something small and bronze on a chain, tapping it nervously against her leg. It's a TARDIS key.

The Doctor desperately wishes that the sight of her made him as happy as it should.

As if she can hear him thinking about her—and for all he knows, she can; if she's really here and she's really crossed dimensions to get to him, she might as well be telepathic too—she looks up, and her eyes meet his. She draws his eyes like a magnetic force. Her lips part almost imperceptibly. Careful self-made barriers slipping down. The Doctor can't believe that she's right here, right now, and allows himself just a sliver of happiness at seeing her again. His throat constricts with words that can't escape and an emotion he won't name.

Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor sees Donna looking at Rose looking at the Doctor looking back, and he watches a smirk cross her face. Ah. So that's why she hit the button. Clever human.

Rose worries her lip now, and that's the Rose he remembers. Bitten lips and tapping fingers and impulsive decisions and oh god. She's pushing off the table and leaving the room before anyone can stop her. The window goes dark again.

_Please no please no please no please no_

The door slides open—

"Rose!" shouts Mickey's voice, overlapping in a Venn Diagram with Donna's triumphant crow of "I BLOODY KNEW IT!"

—and when the door slides shut again, Rose is standing on this side of it.

The Doctor wonders if perhaps the room has gone inside-out, eversed in a spectacular cuboid parallel of Smale's Paradox. That's the only reasonable explanation for Rose being in the room instead of out of it. But it doesn't explain why she's marching up to him right now like she has absolutely no regard for her own safety and _why isn't she running away what is wrong with her_.

"I'm addressing the being possessing the Doctor," Rose says.

She steps closer to him. He wishes she wouldn't. She tucks her hair behind her ear and the Doctor envies her freedom of movement. Her freedom, period. "I need you to talk to me," she says to the Entity, looking down at the Doctor. He can't turn his head, but his eyes track her every move. "I need to know what you want. All right?"

The Doctor's lips do not move. His mouth does not open. Perhaps the Entity is dimly aware, nestled somewhere deep in his motor functions, that its stolen voice would be muffled and useless against the gag.

"You killed a lot of people today. The people with me want to hurt you for that," Rose says. "But that body and brain you've got—they're both very important. I don't want to punish the Doctor for your mistakes. I'm telling you this cos I want you to know that I'm willing to negotiate to get him back in one piece. Understand?"

She takes a breath and steels herself. "I'm going to remove the gag now."

The Doctor wants to shake his head. He knows it's useless but as Rose steps even closer still, he tries anyway, mentally straining to send a message from his brain to his neck that his neck will obey.

_No no no no please. Not her. Please. Please._

Rose reaches behind him and unties the gag, her hands gently brushing against the short hairs on the back of his head and neck. Gooseflesh prickles all over his body at the sensation. His mouth is free now.

He wishes he could stretch his jaw. It's very sore.

"Now," Rose breathes. "What do you want?"

The Doctor waits for his words to mirror hers, and finds that he's waiting a long time. (Four and a half seconds. It feels like an eternity.)

"I can't help you if you don't tell me what you want."

His mouth doesn't move and his tongue is still. He feels like he might choke on it.

Rose reaches out of his line of sight and grabs something. A stool. She drags it over to the Doctor's side, metal feet quietly protesting against tiled floor. Rose sits down on it. She looks tired.

"I guess it's a good thing that you're not repeating any more, right?" she asks, talking more to herself than anyone else. "That was getting a little stale, if I'm being honest. I'd like to think maybe this thing wears off eventually. Maybe it's just like getting sick and the Doctor will get better on his own." She sucks in a deep drink of air. "I get the feeling that's wishful thinking, though. Yeah?"

Yeah. He nods. Or at least he tries to.

"So why aren't you repeating anymore?" Rose asks.

The Doctor would like to know the answer to that himself. As tiresome as he found his verbal ripples, he fears what will happen next. _It repeats, then it synchronizes, then it goes on to the next stage_. What is he synchronizing? What is the next stage?

And where is Sky right now?

"If you won't speak to me, then I want to talk to the Doctor," Rose says. "Please," she adds, a quiet but hopeful afterthought.

Silence.

The Rose he knows would start to get impatient by now. The Rose in front of him does not. To somebody watching from the outside, she could be conducting a business interview. Surveying a candidate for an open position. Testing them for the proper answers to her leading questions to see if there's a place for them at the company after all. She doesn't look impressed with the Entity's CV.

"Look, if you don't give me a sign one way or the other, I'm gonna get overridden, and the people in the room behind me are gonna take some drastic action." She picks at her cuticles, the very air of nonchalance in a lab full of weapons. "See, we took a scan of the Doctor's brain earlier, and—well, I'm not gonna pretend we understood all of it, he's got some stuff in there we don't even have a name for. But the basic structure is the same. He's got chemicals and wrinkly bits and brain waves and stuff. We looked for you in there, too, but we couldn't find you." She shifts in her seat and the cushion squeaks beneath her. "Now maybe our equipment isn't advanced enough to detect whatever you are. It's possible. But I don't think that's the case. I really don't, because you stopped talking and moving when we knocked the Doctor out. Almost like you're only conscious when he is. So you know what I think?"

She looks up from her fingernails, meeting the Doctor's gaze evenly. "I think you're all wrapped up in there. I think you're so tangled in his wiring that you can't be sorted out. And I think if his brain shuts down, yours shuts down with it."

Oh, she's brilliant. Brilliant, brilliant little human. The Doctor's hearts could burst from the pride that's filling them.

Rose leans forward in her seat, her face level with the Doctor's. "So, do you want to die, or do you want to let me talk to the Doctor?"

The Doctor can almost feel the Entity thinking about it, weighing decisions on a pin's head. The scales teeter precariously. Weights shift and something comes thundering down. His mouth cracks open. A puff of air escapes his lips, carries on it a groan.

Rose's demeanor shifts dramatically. "Doctor?" she asks, a shadow of her old self peeking out.

"Yes," the Doctor's voice replies. It's a robotic sound. Tones of Cyberman. "I am Doctor."

He would laugh if the situation wasn't so dire, and if the Entity would let him. Rose's lips twitch. It looks like she's struggling not to laugh too.

"I think you're missing a word there, mate," Rose smiles. "Want to try again?"

"I am Doctor. I am the Doctor. Please don't make me die," the Doctor's voice intones. His mouth speaks the words slowly and carefully, measures them out in even weights.

"Who am I?"

"Yellow girl," the Doctor's voice responds automatically.

Rose nods. "So you've tapped into his nervous system, but you can't access his thoughts or his memories. That's good." She pushes off her stool and stands up, pulls at the hem of her shirt where it's ridden up. "That's really good. That buys you a few more hours."

She turns and walks away. She reaches the door before the Doctor feels his mouth open again.

"I want life."

Rose's hand stills on the doorknob. "You want to live it, or you want to take it?" she asks without turning her head. When the Doctor doesn't respond for a moment, she chances a look at him.

The Doctor feels his lips turn upward in a smile. A feral grin. Lots of teeth in it.

He whispers.

"Yes."

Rose stares at him. For the first time since she entered the room, she looks just the tiniest bit scared. He can hear her trembling in her breaths.

"The Doctor won't let you hurt anyone else," she says sharply. "And neither will I."

She opens the door and leaves without saying another word. UNIT's going to release more tranquilizer into his bloodstream after that little outburst. The Doctor just knows it.

"Bang," says the Doctor when the door slams shut.

* * *

Drugs dull. Sleep falls. The Doctor dreams.

_He stalks the halls of a marble palace. His vision is clean and sharp. Better than he could have imagined. Better than it ever was, before. Meat bags flee screaming before him and he can see every wrinkle, every hair, every pore as they run. Some flesh cries and other flesh echoes. Bodies lose control. Sit and stare, mumble and cry, open airlocks and step out into the world. Some of them leave in flying things. Others don't and turn to dust._

_They are all afraid._

_He remembers fear. Remembers the smell of it. Metal and cold before. Salty and warm now. Heady. Meaty. He wants to sink his teeth into it. Familiar animal taste. Juices and guts and heat in his mouth._

_He has not eaten for a long, long time._

_He passes by a shining thing and a different face stares back at him. Yellow hair, big eyes, curved nose. Teeth that click together. Named for the sky. He looks like the meat bags now. Has their same bile and fragile bones. Some of them snap their own bones running into the walls and jumping off staircases._

_Bones break like twigs break like wet sounds on marble._

_Some of them drown in the pool. Drown their lungs to drown out the noise. Or because the noise told them to do it. Told their brains which told their limbs. Other flesh hurt each other. Echo each other's shrieks and slashes and wounds._

_He's always been good at finding ways into things._

_Now the dream shifts and he's alone in the palace. Alone and safe. Alone with the ghosts, but they are all quiet. He listens to the blue box people instead. He is far away from them, but when they are close to his otherself, he hears everything._

_His otherself is afraid, but he is not. There is no fear-smell on this meat bag._

_He feels his otherself from far away, reaching back through time and space. The blue box is something marvelous and he wants it, but he can be patient. Otherself will provide. He can almost read its bodymind now. It's taking longer than it did for Sky, but the sleeping times make it easier. Breaks down the walls in the meat bag's mind. He's mapping out its tunnels and quarries now. Delving into its deepest thoughts. Diving into its darkest fears._

_Finding ways into things. Tangling in the wires. _

_Synchronization_.

* * *

\- to be continued -


	3. The Next Stage

-The Next Stage -

"Oi, we'd better be careful of this hand. I think he's hurt his fingers."

Consciousness creeps back in. The Doctor's eyelids are lead weights, his heartsrate sluggish. The shutters don't quite open and he's left in the dark. He thinks about opening his eyes, but he doesn't.

He wants them to think he's still unconscious. He'll learn more that way.

"When did that happen?" Rose asks.

He can feel his bones healing in his injured fingers. Fractures knitting themselves back together. A warm feeling on his injured hand. Gentle. Non-intrusive. Fingers tracing over his, avoiding the hurt parts. Leaving them be while they mend. Donna's hand cradles his. Like he's a patient in hospital.

"He mashed it against the TARDIS doors," Donna replies. "Earlier. When he was trying to get in. When...anyway. It made a horrible sound. Can't we take care of it for him?"

"We can't risk loosening the restraints yet. Believe me, I want to."

No, they shouldn't loosen the restraints. Rose is right. He could get loose.

He really, really could.

Rose quiets. "I hope he'll forgive me."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about it," Donna tells her, waving her free hand dismissively. The Doctor feels the small breeze it leaves in its wake. "Don't forget, he's got all sorts of medical stuff in the TARDIS. Got a laser that zaps your moles just like that." She snaps her finger to demonstrate how quick _just like that_ is. "Besides, he bloody freaking loves you," she finishes. "It's like, blindingly, painfully obvious."

Oh, god. They're going to start talking about his _feelings_.

But they're not talking about hers. Rose isn't responding. Maybe she's formulating a response. Or maybe she's too busy blushing. Blood vessels opening wide, flooding tender flesh.

_Blood flesh pink meat yellow girl_

Where did that come from?

The Doctor tries not to think about it.

…but seriously aren't they going to talk about her feelings too? It's only fair.

"So I'm glad I finally got to meet the infamous Rose Tyler," Donna says after a moment, breaking the quiet.

"Infamous, eh?" Rose laughs. The sound is much like he remembers. Softer than it used to be, but still tinkling and bright.

"It's just a shame you had to show up in the middle of all this. Any other day, he'd be ecstatic at the sight of you. Probably run after you like the end of a mushy rom-com."

Please merciful universe let the nightmare end.

"I think I'd like to see that," Rose smiles. The Doctor can hear the smile in her voice. Hear her teeth. Sharp like a wolf's.

His own teeth want to bite. Gnash. Tear. Snap at the restraints holding him.

_Not long now_

He startles. He feels different from before. Strong. Powerful.

_Powerful enough to rip out of this chair and stalk through the building and they should really run now and they will fear fear fear him_

Rose stands up, shoes scuffing on floor, and the Doctor hears her approach him, a small metal box weighing heavy in her hands. The Doctor smells silica and copper wires and plastisteel from Alvoricia X. "I'm hooking it to him now," she calls over her shoulder, to the people in the small room behind the one-way window.

_Yellow girl has a herd, that's right. One of them's male. "Mickey". The other two are already accounted for_

No, not "Yellow girl." Rose. She's Rose.

"D'you really think that will cure him?" Donna asks.

Rose shrugs. "I hope so. We caught a bunch of Alvoricians using it, trying to do some kind of brain-meld with the local residents in Bradford—"

"Ugh," Donna sticks out her tongue with a wet mouthy sound, shudders. "Bradford."

"—and our scientists reverse-engineered it. It worked then. It separated the humans and the Alvoricians."

"So why don't you look so happy about it?"

Rose fiddles with a switch on the side of the box. "Most of the humans didn't survive the process."

Donna swallows. Loudly.

"Still, he's made of tougher stuff than we are. Sort of hard to kill," Rose says, and the Doctor knows she's flashing a reassuring smile at Donna. "Like a cat. Got nine lives. Maybe more. I don't really know how that works."

"And even if it doesn't cure him...Rose, we can't let that thing hurt anyone else. He gets that—probably better than anyone, I think. You know that, right?"

Yes. Yes, he gets it.

"Yeah," Rose says quietly. The Doctor can feel her eyes on him now. "Yeah, I think he understands."

_No he doesn't he needs to be free he needs to roam he needs to tear and slash and rend_

She's standing right next to him now, tinkering with the device. He feels a wisp of air on his neck and his throat-hollow; she pushes his shirt aside and now she's pressing ice-cold discs on him, two near his temples, two on his chest. Electrodes. "Ready!" she shouts to the people behind her.

He feels one eyebrow twitch and his lips quirk in a grin of their own.

Oh, no.

"Wait, Rose—did you see that?"

Eyes open, restraint tears, one arm pulls free.

_Rip tear smash_

Hand grasps and clutches and closes over a small silver box. Rose is startled. Her eyes go wide with alarm.

_Fear yes fear yes fear him_

"Now! Do it now!" Rose shouts as the Doctor's hand wrenches the box from her.

Someone flips a switch somewhere and the box begins to hum and glow and electricity arcs out in the cables, buzz-hiss-whines traveling from the box through copper wires into electrodes with a white pop and a hot snap and the Doctor's head and body is flooded with pain. It's like the Doctor has grabbed a live wire and shoved it directly into his grey matter. His brain sends messages to each and every cell in the rest of his body telling it to _hurt hurt hurt_. He feels his face contort and a wounded animal cry wrenches out of him. His body spasms in the chair, each and every one of his millions upon millions of nerve endings on fire and screaming.

Rose drags Donna back, away from the electricity that arcs and bites and covers the Doctor. "Oh my god oh god oh god oh god," Donna chokes out, hands covering her face and shielding eyes with tears in them.

The Doctor doesn't disagree.

He can _feel_ the Entity now, can feel it fighting for dominance, clawing through the tissue-paper of his mind. Even amidst the clenching pain and bright lights, he feels it fully awaken in him, feels it open its mouth and roar. Feels its teeth. It's threading through his grey matter, winding like a snake, coiling round everything that's left.

He feels it when the Entity realizes it's losing control. He tries to seize it back.

In response, the Entity hurls the device across the room and rips the electrodes off his head.

_Hijack the signal short the fuse _

The box crashes into the soundproof one-way window (which shatters into a thousand loud pieces smashing into the ground, not so soundproof any more) and Mickey and Captain Magambo only just manage to dive out of the way.

_Break the circuit _

Oh, but he's alive. Alive and warm and yes there is pain but there is power too.

This body will live _forever_.

He drinks in his memories—the Entity drinks in his memories—he feels his mind open wide and the knowledge drains out—membrane cracking open like an egg and there's a hungry egg-eating creature nearby—

Screaming. Shouting. Mickey and Captain Magambo scramble to turn off the machine. The pain and the hurt stop. The heat goes away. His body slumps back in the chair, his chest heaving. But it doesn't matter.

The Entity has his memories now. The Entity is the—

"Doctor?" a querulous voice asks. A voice with tears in it.

_Sad voice red hair blood hair Donna_

"Donna?" he croaks. (His voice croaks. It's the Entity speaking. Not him. He is not the Entity. He is not.)

Eyes open. Bright room. Donna is there. And yellow girl.

(_Rose_, he reminds himself, forces himself to remember. _Rose. Her name is Rose_. He struggles for control and realizes that this is the very definition of fighting a losing battle.)

Donna's lower lip quivers. "Is it you, or that thing?" she asks, spitting out _thing_ like it's a dirty word.

"It's me," the Entity says, and god, it sounds just like him now. Panting. Gasping for breath. Eyes half-open. Body still trembling with pain. "It's gone," his voice says. Soft and breathy. Full of hurt. "It's gone. It's gone. It's gone."

_It's not. It's not. I'm not._

"Prove it," Mickey calls from the other room.

The Doctor fixes his gaze on him. His head rolls on a limp neck, except it's not, it's just fine, he feels just fine now that the hurt is fading, but he has to keep up appearances.

"Mickey Smith," he acknowledges, and his eyes travel round until they land on Rose. Yellow girl is really rather pretty, or at least the Doctor seems to think so.

"And Rose Tyler," he breathes. "How are you here?"

"I'd really like to tell you about it sometime, but right now, I need you to prove that you're the Doctor," Rose says. Despite her caution, her brown eyes are big and shining and full of hope.

_Big wet eyes that go "pop"_

"Quite right, too," he replies with a smile.

Rose does not smile back. "What is the first thing you ever said to me?"

"I took your hand and told you to run," he rasps.

"How long was I gone from my timeline?"

"Twelve months. Not twelve hours. Little quantum piloting mistake, anyone could have done it."

"Where did you keep your secret stash of biscuits when I was onboard?"

"The oven-drawer in the galley, but it wasn't really a secret since you kept stealing them."

"And what's the last thing you ever said to me?"

The Doctor quiets. Makes sure his Adam's apple bounds the appropriate amount. To make it appear that he's nervous, and contrite. Full of emotion. Like the meat has.

"I said 'Rose Tyler,'" he tells her.

Rose falls silent. She watches his face. Her brow is furrowed in concentration. She is hopeful, but quiet.

He wonders if she knows it's not him. (Please, let her know.)

(_No—don't. It's more fun that way_.)

Donna looks from Rose to the Doctor, from the Doctor back to Rose. "Well?" she prompts. "Is he right? Is it him?"

"I don't know," Rose says, uncertain.

"Can we loosen his restraints?"

"Better not," the Doctor interrupts, cutting Rose off before she can reply. "Just in case. To make sure it's completely gone. I think Rose and Mickey would prefer it that way."

Good. That sounds like something the Doctor would say.

_Please Rose it isn't me please Rose please know_

"Am I right, Rose?" he asks. (The Entity asks. Using his voice. He is not the Entity.)

_(Not quite yet)_

"I swear it's me, but you do whatever you've got to, to feel safe," he whispers earnestly when Rose doesn't respond. "I trust you."

Oh, laying it on a bit thick there, isn't he? He cringes internally. Surely Rose knows he'd never say anything as saccharine sweet as that, that must be what's going through her head as she approaches him cautiously, reaches out to touch his face with one hand, and hesitates. She looks into his eyes, and yes, that's got to be a flicker of distrust there, she's probably engaging her Torchwood training to suss out his physical tells, silently notating his dilated pupils and too-much-blinking and erratic breathing and any minute now she'll see he's lying, and the Doctor thinks that right up until she cups his chin in her hand and tilts his head upward and presses her lips to his.

Whatever he was expecting her to do, it wasn't this.

Under normal circumstances, he might allow himself to enjoy everything that is happening right now—the featherlight brush of Rose's hair falling across his face, the weight of her upper body pressing into him, the taste of her lipgloss and of her. It's rather a chaste kiss but it still sends his senses into overdrive. This is a fantasy he's rarely permitted himself; he's a practically-immortal Time Lord, and she's so young, and he should be above such petty physical needs. He really should. But neither the Doctor nor the Entity seem to be able to stop his body from responding, and his heartsrate speeds up to an embarrassing tempo, the monitors chiming erratically; his cheeks and the back of his neck goes warm, and his free hand slides up to cradle her head in his hand and gently take control of the kiss.

_System floods with hormones and pheromones and the Entity reels with it but keeps going, it's curious, it wants to know what the meat-people do, feel what the flesh-bodies feel, and right now it can feel Rose-yellow-girl's fragile skull through her skin, and it wonders how thin is the line between love and hate_

"Wow," says Donna, from somewhere far away, and the Doctor hears Mickey snickering. "Need a room, much?"

The Doctor tries to pull himself out of the quicksand, struggles once again for control, but the Entity has opened his mouth and deepened the kiss, transforming it into a hungry thing. Bruising. Punishing. The Doctor hates this creature more than he's hated almost anything, feels his eyelids and throat burn with the power of it, and he hates his traitorous body and even hates himself, wishes with all his might that Rose would please, please, please realize that _this is not him, please realize before it's too late_, but she's giving as good as she's getting, hot mouth and soft breath and just a little bit of tongue, and now her hands have slid up to drag her fingers through his hair, and any minute now the Entity is going to do something terrible to her, _and how can she not know_—

Oh.

Her thumbs settle over his temples and he feels something flutter at the corners of his mind, a delicate and gentle touch like butterfly's wings.

Rose's mind. She's triggering his telepathy.

He uses the last ounce of his self-control and, for the very first time in his very long life, he opens the door and stands aside to let someone in.

* * *

_He opens his inner eye and he's in a grey room, a watery-charcoal version of the lab his physical body occupies. The room is lined with doors on every wall, doors with locked handles and keys thrown away. Entries he's blocked off in an effort to keep the monster out. Pitch blackness hovers in the cracks between the doors and the floor. A shadow made solid. The monster waits to creep in._

_It's all a bit Stanley Kubrick for his tastes, but he can appreciate his subconscious' effort to arrange what's left of his mind in a way that Rose can understand._

_The room is empty except for Rose and the Doctor. Rose looks confused and disorientated, as well she should—it's not every day a human enters a Time Lord mind. After just a second, she turns and spots him. A gasp leaves her mouth at the sight of him, still immobile and strapped to the chair. She looks like her worst fears have been confirmed._

Doctor_. The word leaves her mouth like a quiet prayer. She rushes to his side and, unthinking, tries to rip off his restraints. But her hands pass through him like he's not even there._

_She curses under her breath. _It's still got you, _she says angrily._

_Blackness seeps in the cracks of the room. It's breaking down the last of his mental barriers._

_They don't have much time._

It's taking over_, he says, not even bothering to hide his desperation. _It's weaving itself into my knowledge. My memories. Everything I am. I'm fighting to stay on, but I can't hold out much longer. You've got to help me.

How do I stop it? _she asks without missing a beat._

You're going to have to kill this body, _the Doctor tells her._

_Rose shakes her head. _Not gonna do that.

Rose, please, _he pleads_. I'll regenerate.

You don't know that, _Rose argues. _What if you stay dead?

It's like you told it earlier—

I was bluffing, _Rose cuts him off sharply. She runs a hand through her hair. _I was never going to let anyone kill you.

Rose. You have to.

Give me another option.

Rose—

_The blackness leaks into the gaps between tiles in the ceiling and floor. It snakes toward them from all sides of the room. Moving faster now. The Entity is catching on to Rose's ploy._

You might be able to stop it if you can destroy the original host, _the Doctor says quickly, watching as the blackness creeps toward them like a sentient oil spill. _That's the only other choice, and I don't even know if it will work. But it's a moot point because Sky's back on Midnight and I never taught you to take the TARDIS anywhere but home. But even if you did manage to get the TARDIS back there—

_The room is almost entirely black now. Viscous tendrils reach out toward Rose and her image starts to fade._

You can't take the TARDIS back to Midnight, _the Doctor rushes the words out as fast as they can go._ _The oily black stuff has crept up around the chair and it snakes its way up. Crawling over metal base and leather cushions. Looping through velcro restraints. It starts winding its way around him. Slithers over his arms and legs and body._

You can't let Sky get her hands on it! _the Doctor shouts as the blackness makes its way up his chest. _You can't let the Entity have the TARDIS!

_Rose shakes her head again, moves her mouth, but he can't hear her speak. Her image blinks out of existence._

Rose!

_The shadow coils round his throat and mouth and eyes. All goes dark. The Doctor feels the last of his free will dissolve away, feels it like a physical pang, as the Entity bonds itself to him completely._

Hello, otherself, _Sky's voice whispers in his mind._ Welcome home.

* * *

It's only been a few seconds out in the world.

The Doctor opens his eyes to find yellow-girl-Rose pulling away from him, breaking the kiss and pushing back. She opens her mouth to warn the others.

"It's got him—!"

Fast as a snake, his free hand grabs her by the arm and yanks her back down to his eye level. Donna startles at the motion. Rose lets out a small pained noise at the tightness of his grasp.

"You tricked me," he says, his voice quiet and matter-of-fact, his face very close to hers. He can feel his pupils dilate. "That was a very bad thing to do."

Her eyes widen in fear. Delicious.

Mickey vaults out of the small room beyond and Captain Magambo is not far behind. The Doctor waits, patient, until Mickey reaches out to help Rose pry herself from his grasp, then he pushes Rose, pushes her _hard_. She crashes back into Mickey and the two of them fall sprawling to the floor in a tangle of limbs and bruises. The Doctor rips away his IVs and monitors and remaining restraints, tears them like they're wet paper, and he rises from the chair. He walks over to Mickey and Rose and the two of them back away, Mickey pushing up off the floor and dragging Rose with him. He stands in front of Rose, shielding her with his body.

The Doctor chuckles. Even when they stand, he towers over the both of them.

He is a _god_.

"Stand down!" Captain Magambo shouts from the doorway, a gun in her hand. She points it square at the Doctor's head.

The Doctor turns and fixes his gaze her way. "Are you sure you want to do that?" he asks. Lecturing, like one might lecture a student.

Captain Magambo blinks. "Are you sure you want to do that?" she echoes. The gun trembles in her grasp.

"I think that would be a mistake," the Doctor continues.

"I think that would be a mistake," Captain Magambo voice agrees, but her face does not.

The Doctor walks toward her. "You never asked for this fight. Wouldn't it be better if it was over?"

"...better if it was over?" A bead of sweat trickles down Captain Magambo's face.

The Doctor's feet stop mere inches from hers. "Turn that weapon on yourself," he commands.

"Turn that weapon on yourself," Captain Magambo says, voice shaking, and the hand holding her gun turns inexorably inward.

A flash of grey-and-metal crosses the Doctor's vision. Donna hurls the stool across the room, smashing into Captain Magambo's arm. Magambo knocks back against the wall and drops her gun and it discharges a single bullet into the ceiling with an earth-shattering _BANG_.

"Run!" Donna screams at the top of her lungs, panting, her shrill voice piercing the Doctor's eardrums. Her face is streaked with tears. "Just bloody _run_!"

"I'm not leaving you—" Rose grits out to Donna as Captain Magambo loops with "Run, just bloody run I'm not leaving you" and Mickey ushers Rose out the door before she can finish. Rose shoots a final stricken glance at Donna before she disappears down the corridor.

The Doctor cocks his head and watches her leave and he thinks. These meat bodies worry about each other so. He doesn't understand it. Their lives are so short; what does it matter if they end now, or in an hour, or in a year? It hardly makes a difference in the grand scheme of the cosmos.

It hardly makes a difference to someone like him.

Except for yellow girl. Yellow girl is...special.

"Donna," he says. He hears Donna shuddering in the corner. Cowering, like a flesh body is apt to do. "Donna. Do you want to help me?"

"I want to help the Doctor," Donna says stubbornly.

The Doctor nods. "Very good," he says with a lazy smile.

* * *

Will and Ripley may be unconscious, their eyes closed and unable to see, bodies heavy and unable to move, but that's all right. The Doctor doesn't need their eyes or their hands. He has their ears.

He hears the precise moment Rose and Mickey run by their cell, listens to the squeak of combat boots against the floor and the low murmur of Mickey issuing instructions into his walkie-talkie. He's telling the head of security about the Code Red status in Lab 12. Telling the head of security to get everyone out, and deadbolt the doors behind them. He and Rose will stay behind to deal with the Doctor.

Well. That suits the Doctor just fine.

Donna and Captain Magambo leave the room without a word. They do not need to be told what to do. They can feel it. Donna heads for the fuse box, relying on her shared senses with the Doctor to trace the building's power to its source. The Doctor hears her muttering stolen words to herself as she passes UNIT agents fleeing in the halls. _We've got to go hurry move this way run we'll regroup later where is the Captain they said it's got her_. She walks the halls like an apparition while Captain Magambo hunts down new prey, the Doctor stalking through her eyes. He is a predator brought out of a nature film into the realm of the waking world. He thinks of watching lions in Morocco in 1813, admiring their strength and sinew, the taut pull of muscles in their shoulders as they prepared to strike. He feels that same tension in his shoulders now.

The Doctor licks his teeth. Runs his tongue along the edges of them. Feels their flat planes and dipping valleys and sharp peaks. Calcium formations meant to bite and tear. They are not lion's-teeth. But he's a hunter all the same, and he can do so much more damage than a mere meat-creature ever could.

The UNIT agents are efficient and quick when they escape; he encounters only a few people as he walks. He relishes the flashes of fear that cross their faces. They immediately know who he is. And it isn't just because they observed him in the lab, or heard about him secondhand. No. They take one look at him and they just _know_.

"Go wake Will and Ripley," he says to one; "Go wake Will and Ripley," she repeats, and obeys. "Find your friends," he says to another; he agrees and darts away to infect others with his words. "Do something smart," he says to a last handful, and they echo after him, and they scurry off to find high ledges and toxic chemicals and dangerous machines. Their eyes open wide in a silent scream the whole time. Human beings are _so_ clever.

His feet slow to a stop when he encounters a gate splitting the hall in two. A chain-link wall stands in front of him, like something a shop-owner might pull over their storefront at the end of the day. An automatic process; a shield dropped down to keep dangerous things out or more dangerous things in. He reaches out to touch it. Runs his fingers over metal rings that clank and clink together. Cold and round and smooth. If he had his sonic, he could aim it at the motor, force the metal wall to retreat. His touch is gentle and contemplative.

The Doctor threads his fingers through the rings and tears the wall down.

Rings bounce and scatter and sing across the floor. The Doctor finds it quaint and amusing that anyone thinks such a thing could hold him, sonic screwdriver or no. But probably yellow-girl-Rose thinks that he doesn't have the strength to tear down metal and rend stone. She didn't see what he did to the tour bus. She doesn't understand. She probably thinks they're all safe as long as she has the sonic screwdriver safely tucked away somewhere. Silly yellow-girl.

He hears her and Mickey sprinting away up ahead. He thinks he maybe ought to teach her a lesson.

Far away, Donna cuts the building's power and drowns the compound in shadow, filling the UNIT headquarters with a darkness so pitch-black that it's nearly solid. The bottom of the ocean never knew such dark depths. Rose and Mickey halt in their tracks, unable to see. The Doctor speculates that he has approximately three-point-seventeen seconds before the emergency lights kick on.

In approximately three-point-nine seconds, he has reached them and wrapped one hand around Rose Tyler's throat.

She lets out a cry as he slams her against the wall, hitting so hard that her small frame cracks the drywall behind her. He hears the whoosh of air leaving her lungs and tightens his grip before she can draw it back in. The reedy emergency lights flash on and Mickey spots the Doctor and starts to withdraw a gun from the holster under his jacket.

"Stop," the Doctor says quietly.

Mickey freezes. "Stop," he repeats, and his hand stills on the gun.

Rose grabs the Doctor's arm, tries to pry his fingers off her neck. Fingernails digging into cotton and skin underneath. Her cheeks quickly start to flush red. _Blood vessels opening wide, flooding tender flesh._ The Doctor relaxes his hold a bit. He doesn't quite know his own strength yet. And he doesn't want his plaything to fade quite so soon. She's trembling with fear, almost stinking with it, but she isn't nearly as afraid as she should be.

"Mickey," the Doctor and Mickey both say, as the Doctor keeps his gaze firmly fixed on Rose; "Leave the building with the others. Maybe you could go into town. Find some people to talk to. Doesn't that sound nice?"

"Mickey, don't," Rose pleads, and Mickey repeats her words even as he disobeys them.

"Captain Magambo and Mickey Smith and their weapons," the Doctor says softly to Rose as Mickey retreats down the hall. "Didn't I teach you better than that? But I suppose _you_ must know better; you seem to think you can survive this ordeal without weapons of any sort."

"Please let Mickey go," Rose tries.

The Doctor cinches his fingers ever-so-slightly on her neck. She lets out a gasp and tears prickle the edges of her eyes.

"I don't want to hear anything about Mickey Smith right now," the Doctor tells her. His voice is soft and dangerous. He leans in close to her. "I am talking."

"Doctor, please. This isn't you."

The Doctor laughs. "Have we reached that part of the dialogue already? 'This isn't you, I know you're still in there, if only I can get to the part of you hidden deep down and secreted away!' I know you'd like to think all that, Rose Tyler. It fits in nicely with your beliefs. Dualism. Souls. A person's metaphysical essence. Separation between flesh and self. But here's the thing, love: it's all rubbish. Our bodies are just meat. Meat and blood and bone. Our consciousness is lines of code written in grey matter. Everything you think, everything you feel, is just your brain overloading on doses of chemicals and hormones."

He steps in even closer and tilts his head very close to Rose's, trailing down to her neck, so near his lips could almost touch her. He smells at her throat, at the white column laid bare before him, at the pulse point hammering madly just under her jaw. Smells her chemicals and her hormones and her fight-or-flight scent. It's an intimate gesture, but there is no sex in it. He satisfied that particular curiosity earlier with the kiss. Now his interest is purely clinical. Just how far can he bend her before she'll snap?

"I don't care much for meat," he confesses to her. Now that his voice is his again, he wants to _talk_. Garrulous habits are exponentially multiplied. "Meat doesn't think. Meat barely even feels. It just acts on instinct. Base code and gut feelings. Automatic responses to external stimuli. Judgment and war and pain and heartbreak. A drop in the bucket compared to the expanse of existence. You're pointless, the lot of you."

"Then why don't you leave us alone?"

"Because," he says. "This is what I do. I meddle. I poke. I prod."

He smiles a slow smile at her, a genuine and earnest grin that this face has displayed for her many times. "I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor, if you're really still in there somewhere—"

"But you," the Doctor interrupts, and here he tightens his hold on her throat and lifts her slowly upward, lifting, lifting, lifting until she has to stand on her toes if she wants to maintain contact with the floor, "You are something different. Something new. Something of the wolf about you. You're brighter than the other meat-people. And you've got under my skin. How do I get you out?"

He slams her against the wall again, and she groans at the impact. "How?" he repeats, calm as ever save for his breathing that's grown loud. "You would have followed me to the ends of the universe. Your blind devotion was charming, but that hardly explains anything. Masters don't weep over the loss of their hunting-dogs. And you're hardly the first pet I've kept on board. But you—you followed me, and then you left me, and then you tricked me."

The Doctor tightens his grip once again. Watches her face start to go purple. Not so pink-and-yellow anymore.

"Sometimes I hate you more than anything," he tells her, and his voice breaks on the words. "Yet there are other times I can't see anything but you. But why? Why do you run so deep?"

He grits his teeth. "Why you?"

Rose tries to fight back tears and fails. "Is it you saying all this, or the thing inside?" she asks.

The Doctor runs a broken finger down her cheek, smudging the mascara tracks that mark the path of a fallen tear. Pain flares up from his fractured and mending bones but it's worth it to see the hate flash in her eyes.

"_Yes_," he hisses.

"Right," Rose rasps. "Just wanted to make sure."

She reaches up and grabs his damaged fingers and she snaps them.

White-hot fire erupts behind the Doctor's eyelids as he feels his fingers crack under her grasp. Bones stop repairing and start screaming. Phalanges break with a nasty wet sound. His eyes slam shut with pain and nausea _but only for one fucking second_ but Rose sees the opening and takes it and she delivers a rabbit-punch to his throat. He's the one choking now. His stupid body loosens its hold on Rose out of shock, hand flying up to his neck out of instinct. Rose slumps to the ground, coughing, and her leg twists underneath her, a knee bending in a way that a knee shouldn't. She staggers away, limping, gasping for breath, pulling along the wall for support. Waves of hurt wash over the Doctor, an ocean that rocks him relentlessly until he thinks he'll be sick from it, and he watches bruises blossom in purple-blue over his damaged tissue; he knows the wounds on his throat must match.

His breaths come ragged and his eyes see in a curious shade of red.

He feels Donna and Mickey Smith and Captain Magambo and Will and Ripley and the dozens of others converted pressing in at the corners of his mind; they feel his physical distress as keenly as they would if it had afflicted their own flesh-hosts. They all cry out in shared pain. He shuts them out of his mind. He doesn't need them for this. In fact, he thinks as he watches Rose fumble clumsily with a locked door beyond which lies the TARDIS, whose hum he can feel on the air—in fact, he doesn't need them at all. Rose Tyler still needs to be punished, and he can think of no better way than the method crossing his mind right now.

Rose unlocks the door and pushes through, seeking refuge in the safety of the TARDIS.

The Doctor follows.

* * *

The TARDIS console is dark. She doesn't like him being in here. Doesn't like what he is now. But she doesn't stop him, either. This, to him, seems proof of his supremacy.

His prey is hiding in here somewhere. He can smell her distress. He can practically taste it.

"Rose," the Doctor calls softly. He stows his hands in his pockets, careful to favor his injured fingers, and strolls about the room. Eyes glance in the nooks and crannies, over coral struts and in spaces between round-things in the walls. He looks under the grating beneath the console. He checks the ledge that he found Jackie sitting on once upon a time. He doesn't see Rose anywhere.

"Rose," he repeats, saying her name much like a lover would. "Won't you come out? I want to talk to you."

She hasn't escaped to any other part of the TARDIS. She's still in this room. He knows it. She just hides a little better than he anticipated, keeping to shadows that the TARDIS' green light won't touch.

"The scorecard is hardly balanced," he projects into the room. "You hurt me. I hurt you for hurting me. You hurt me again. Advantage Rose. But I'm of a generous sort. I promise not to hurt you again."

His voice is not very sincere. It doesn't really matter.

The Doctor surveys the room once more and bites his lip, a coy gesture borne of physical habit more than anything else. He is almost surprised that he can't see her in the dark, actually—this body has excellent night-vision, and darkness is no stranger to him—and his auditory and olfactory senses seem muffled as well. Dimmed greatly from their usual heightened clarity. It occurs to him that his ship could be helping her hide. Erecting a shaky perception filter. Shielding the Bad Wolf behind trickery and science. Protecting one fairy-tale monster from another.

"Oh," he says, walking up the ramp toward the console. "You little minx. Are you helping the stowaway? It's a mutiny, then."

He runs his fingers over the TARDIS control desk, fingertips grazing keys and levers and switches and buttons. He wonders, idly, if he could infect her databanks, wrap his tendrils around what sentience she has. But the TARDIS' consciousness is dark to him. Inaccessible. Sealed and deadbolted.

It's all right. He knows firsthand that a puppet is just a puppet, consciousness or no.

The Doctor flips a switch. "They say nothing is greater than the bond between a Time Lord and their TARDIS," he calls out to Rose.

He presses a button. "It's almost distressing that you have violated that bond, Rose. Not once, but twice, now."

He taps a few keys. "Ah, but you might have noticed that little modifier I slipped in there. 'Almost.' Good word, 'almost.' From the Old English _æl m__ǣ__st_. 'For the most part.' 'Practically.' 'Near.' 'Not quite.'" He pronounces those last two words with sharp over-enunciation.

"Now, this is the part where you say, 'Why 'almost', Doctor?' Well, I'm glad you asked, Rose. First, I'm only _almost_ distressed because the TARDIS, much like you, is a thing, and things exist to be used. I can use her whether she wants me to or not, again, much like I can do with you. It's only a matter of pushing buttons and flipping switches. So really, even if she thinks she's on your side, there's not much she can do about it. And second…"

His hand pauses over a lever. "Second, I have a new bond now. With dozens, and soon hundreds, of other people. I see what they see. Feel what they feel. And they do much the same for me. I can control their movement and their speech. Coax out the deepest nooks and crannies of what passes for their thoughts. Isn't that lovely?" he asks with a grin. "Imagine what I could do with that, if I wanted. No more war. No more violence. No more anything bad. And imagine I take that a step further. You can't have any of those things if there are no people to make them happen. I can make peace happen, Rose."

Her name rolls between his teeth. "I can make it. I can."

The Doctor quiets. "I'm so tired, Rose. Meat-people and their instincts and their gut-feelings for war and strife and pain—they make me tired. Bodies striving to smash and destroy just because they don't know any better. Instinct can't be un-written. Meat-people can't be saved. Do I have to keep trying? Is there any point to this Sisyphean task? Don't I deserve to rest?"

Rose, wherever she is in the room, does not reply.

He sighs. "You're right. No need for words. Your silence speaks loudly enough."

His hand falls, rests on the lever, fingers wrapping slowly around. "You crossed dimensions to find me. Clawed your way past impossibility. I'd hate for you to do all that for nothing. So how would you like to travel with me again, eh?" he asks conversationally. "One last trip, for old time's sake? There's someone I'd like you to meet. Oh, and Rose…"

He looks up, and there she is; the perception filter has melted away and she stands just meters away. Their eyes lock.

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry," he tells her, and he almost means it.

She knows what he's going to do. She lunges toward him.

He throws the lever.

* * *

The TARDIS begins to re-materialize with a shuddering groan. She doesn't want to return to this place and she's making her displeasure well and loudly known. The ship gives a great jolt—Rose is pushed off-balance, catching herself on the control desk as she falls. She clings to the console as best she can amidst the ship's tossing and churning, knuckles turning white from the strain, face pinched as she struggles to stand on her damaged knee. When the ship lurches once again, Rose is thrown bodily against the railing, knocking the wind out of her for the second time today. She collapses onto the grating below with a small moan, her body banging down hard and quivering in shock.

The Doctor watches the display, his own feet steadfastly anchored and unmoving, and he shakes his head. The meat-people are so fragile. She's only been choked a little bit and barely thrown about and slightly punched into a wall and twisted her knee-tissue some and she probably only has a dozen or so contusions peppering all over. You'd think she'd at least be able to manage standing up.

The glass column shrieks and the console spits sparks as the TARDIS physically fights to stay away from this planet, grinding and whining and gumming up the works. The Doctor ignores the popping little flashes of heat, walks slowly round the control desk, inching closer to Rose all the while. He notices a glint of silver under her shirt and realizes she must still have the sonic on her. Maybe she hopes to use it against him, but it hardly matters if she does. He can't be stopped. He won't be.

She tries to stand, tries to back away from him, pushing with her arms and her good leg, but he reaches her in several long strides. She kicks at his feet and it hurts but it doesn't stop him.

He grabs her by the wrist, his fingers tight and punishing on her delicate bones, radius and ulna and scaphoid all squeezing together in his fist. He twists, wrenches her off the floor; Rose's jaw tenses and her teeth bite down on the cry that tries to escape her. The TARDIS finally gives in and settles around them, finishing its materialization with a defeated sigh. The Doctor yanks Rose away from the railing, pulling her down the ramp toward the door, pulling her harder when she stumbles.

"Where are we going?" she manages to choke out.

"Further than we've ever gone before," the Doctor replies.

He pulls the TARDIS doors open and the Leisure Palace waits for them. He surveys the landscape, marble-white walls and floors glowing against the colorless shadows, pools pristine and still and sparkling in the moonlight. A breeze drifts gently from the vents and bodies hide in the furthest corners. Darkness has come to Midnight.

The Doctor sees Sky from a distance, hiding in the shadows up ahead. He drops Rose and she falls to the ground. She stays there.

"I don't know why I fought this," the Doctor says, walking toward Sky, who stands still and watches him. She no longer eyes him like a predator looks on its prey. Now she looks at him like a fellow hunter. A nod of the head, a glint in the eye. A silent understanding is between them.

"I was foolish," the Doctor continues. "And prideful. I thought I could understand the monster. Maybe tame it. The hubris of mortals, stuffed and wrapped into an immortal frame." He stops. His hands dangle listlessly by his side. "Stupid," he whispers.

He closes his eyes. Even now, he can feel the meat-people under his influence. There are hundreds of them now, hundreds of human bodies infected with the Entity, struggling not to hurt themselves, straining not to hurt others. Donna and Mickey and Captain Magambo and the rest of them. Trying to stop the repetition. Break the cycle. Kill the echoes and halt the ripples. He's been merciful thus far, displayed restraint in the face of awesome power; all this time in this body and still none of the meat people have died by his will. But like all gods, eventually, his mercy starts waning.

It's going to be a massive bloodshed.

"I hoped for death, near the end," the Doctor says. "All those people…they're getting what I wanted. I'm giving it to them. It's a gift. I am a just and merciful god."

He draws in a breath. He feels the meat-people standing on the edge of a precipice, some of them figuratively, some of them literally, all of them about to die.

"Thank you for this," he tells Sky. He reaches one hand out to her. "Boundless power, and all of time and space at our fingertips. Shall we continue together? Rid the universe of the animals and the horrible thing they bring?"

Sky does not take his hand; her line of sight shifts to something behind him. His brow furrows in confusion. The Doctor turns around to see what Sky is looking at.

Rose.

Rose, standing up off the ground, tremors running through a body that stands on shaking legs.

Rose, whose hand reaches back empty and returns with a gun.

Rose, who stole Captain Magambo's handgun off the floor and now aims it directly at Sky's heart.

"I'm sorry, Doctor," Rose pants.

The Doctor worries his tongue between his teeth. He doesn't think Rose will shoot Sky. The Rose he knows wouldn't do that. Wouldn't be capable of harming a human body like that, even if its original host is gone. The Rose he knows is full of kindness, stubbornness, and buckets of compassion. Things that make her weak, but predictable. She doesn't kill.

Still. He remembers a story about a nail gun and a space shuttle over a black hole and thinks it's better to be safe than sorry. The Doctor steps into Rose's line of fire. A bishop defending his queen. Ivory pieces move and settle. His body is an unbreakable wall.

"It's all right, Rose," he says. His voice is gentle. His words full of understanding. "You can stop pretending. I know you're not going to shoot."

A tear slides down Rose's cheek, leaves behind a shining trail that glistens in the starlight.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers.

She shoots.

.

.

.

* * *

\- to be continued via epilogue -


	4. Epilogue

\- Epilogue -

In the beginning, God destroys everything_._

_Things must be broken to be rebuilt. Towers emerging from the rubble, phoenix born out of ash_

Blood and tissue and guts and bone_._

_But first you've got to burn_

Something rips through him. A tiny piece of metal sent on fast bores through at lightning speed.

_Bodies writhe and contort, spasm on the ground or in each other's arms. But it's over quickly for them, little microorganisms that, for all their senses, cannot feel the turning of the earth_

Eats past muscle and flesh, passes between hearts; an expert mark.

_What circle of hell is this?_

He's been shot before and yes, yes, this is exactly how it felt. Heat and pain and ragged edges. How had he forgot?

_An oil-spill shadow monster struggles to hold on, sinks tendril-teeth into nerves and neurons, screeches an animal scream that shatters glass and pierces skulls_

One stone kills two birds.

_The shadow splinters_

A dull thud behind him. Sky's body hitting the marble. Lifeless glass eyes that stare unseeing. He doesn't have to look to know.

_And shatters_

He falls to his knees.

_Full of sound and fury_

He feels its grasp loosen and slip. A chokehold removed from his heart and his brain. His vision clears, but he still sees red.

_Blood vessels opening wide_

He's on the floor now, stone smooth and cool beneath his face. Deepest black hovers at the edges of his sight. A droplet of paint spreading in a cup of water. Warmth pooling under his chest. Nighttime has come to claim him once more.

He lets it.

* * *

It takes a while for coherent thought to tunnel through the cobwebs in the Doctor's brain. When it succeeds, the first thing he thinks is that he's had quite enough of being forced unconscious, thanks very much. The second thing he thinks is that his mouth tastes dreadful. And the third thing he thinks is something more along the lines of _Oh god_.

He sits straight up in the bed and his head wishes he wouldn't. He immediately lets out a groan.

"Ooh, that looked a little rough," Donna says, yawning and shifting in her bedside chair.

The Doctor blinks sleep out of his eyes. Once he's adjusted to the light, he glances about the room, confirming that he is, in fact, lying on the cot in the TARDIS' medical bay, surrounded by white walls, familiar medical equipment, and the TARDIS' comforting background hum. She's glad to have him back now that it's just him occupying his skull.

He rubs at his temples. Only awake a few moments and he's already got a migraine somehow. "What are you doing here?" he asks Donna.

Donna _hmphs_. "Good morning to you, too, sunshine. Don't I get any thanks for keeping vigil this whole time?"

The Doctor nods, only half-listening as he drops his hands from his head to hold them in front of his face. He's never found them particularly interesting before, but now that they're his again, they're bloody marvelous, every single crease and hair and freckle and cell. And—again, rather selfishly—he's glad to see that they are familiar hands. Not strange, got-to-break-them-in-all-over-again post-regeneration hands. He runs his hands up and down naked arms and bare chest and slightly-stubbled face, happy to note that it is all known terrain, all of it. He lets out a relieved exhale and says a silent thanks that he is able to do so of his own volition. Oxygen cells entering and leaving his body when he wants them to.

"How long was I—"

"Three days," Donna answers. "UNIT wanted to boot you to surgery as soon as that thing was gone. But we told them about your sleep stuff. You know. Your healing coma whatchamacallit. I was sort of starting to think you'd never wake up, though. You slept like the dead."

She glares at him over the top of her trashy romance novel. "That thing _is_ gone, isn't it?"

"It is," the Doctor says quickly. "No one else in here now. Just me."

Donna settles back into her chair. "Good."

"And how many—"

"None," Donna tells him, and the Doctor feels the tension uncoil from his neck and shoulders. "No one died. Not after Midnight, anyway. They're all safe. A little shaken, I think, but safe."

"And what about you?" he asks, grabbing his bedside glass for a good, long drink of water. "Are you all right?"

Donna smiles. "Takes more than a little bit of mind-control to unsettle me. Sturdy, that's what I am."

The Doctor nods and falls back against his pillows, winces as he does so. His injuries have mostly healed, but his flesh remembers the pain. He can feel the edges where old skin and new scar tissues meet. Sense the fault lines in his fingers and abdomen. He trails a hand over his ribcage and traces the ridged circle where a bullet went through. Someone—presumably Donna—has left a fresh-laundered shirt for him on the bedside table, and he considers pulling it on, to hide the scar more than anything, but for the moment, he's just too damn tired.

"And Sky?" he asks.

"Got hit by the same bullet you did. She won't be hurting anyone anymore."

Donna starts to turn a page in her book, stops midway. "How much do you remember, anyway?"

The Doctor closes his eyes and fists his hands in his hair. "Bits and pieces right now. I imagine the whole horrible thing will come flooding in later." He presses the heels of his palms against his eyes until he sees stars. "It always does."

"But at least you got to see Rose again, right? That's not nothing."

The Doctor's eyes snap back open. His hearts do a little flip and a dive down into his stomach. "What?"

Donna shrugs. "You know. Rose."

The Doctor stares at Donna, vaguely aware that his mouth is hanging open like some kind of stupid slack-jawed fish. She stares back at him and raises a querulous eyebrow. "You know," she repeats. "_Rose_. Blue leather jacket, handy with a gun, perky blonde you almost drowned yourself over that one time because you're a hopeless sap. Ring any bells? Don't tell me you forgot."

"I didn't forget," the Doctor splutters. "I just—I sort of thought I imagined that bit. You know," he says defensively as Donna starts laughing to herself, "wish fulfillment when your brain is dying and all that—and hey! It's not funny! It's all very serious! I was nearly killed several times over!"

"And that's different from our everyday lives, how?" Donna asks, wiping a laughter-tear from the corner of her eye. Her chuckles peter off into little hiccups. "Oh, Doctor. Only you would think you imagined the love of your life instead of hoping she was really there."

"'Was'?" the Doctor repeats, frowning. "What do you mean, 'was'? Don't you mean 'is'?"

Donna finishes turning the frozen page in her book, completing its journey westward. "I s'pose so. Got to be around here somewhere, right?"

The Doctor freezes, every muscle in his body gone rigid. Rose is here. In this universe. In this building. What the hell is he waiting for?

This time when his body seems to move of his own volition, he doesn't fear it, doesn't fight it. He lets his arms push him up and his legs swing over the side of the bed and his hand grab the nearby shirt and his feet propel him out the door without another word.

"Don't mind me, thanks," he hears Donna grumble under her breath as he leaves her behind. "Typical rude Spaceman."

* * *

The Doctor runs out of the TARDIS and through the halls of the UNIT building; he is keenly aware of all of the questioning eyes and confused stares that meet him as he pads around bare-footed and pulling his shirt on. He'd love to believe that the averted glances or expressions of outright discomfort are only related to his mussed hair or the fact that (he's fairly certain) he's buttoning his shirt in all the wrong buttonholes, but he knows that they're all remembering him and the things he did. Well, the things he said. Well, the things he tried to make them do. Well. He really doesn't want to think about all that right now.

"Hey, there he is," says Mickey as he rounds a corner. At least Mickey doesn't seem afraid of him. "How's it going, boss?"

The Doctor claps him on the shoulder in greeting but doesn't spare him anything more than that—Mickey's a good fellow and he should recognize a man on a mission when he sees one—and he keeps sprinting.

"Rose is that way," Mickey shouts after him, pointing in exactly the opposite direction. The Doctor turns on his heel and runs back past him with a nod and a salute.

A few moments later, he finds himself standing in the doorway of the room with Rose in it.

Rose is just in her tee shirt and trousers now, no sign of the leather jacket anywhere; without the jacket providing a tough outer shell, she looks small and vulnerable, much more like the girl who turned down a trip in the TARDIS once upon a time. She types away on a computer, tongue caught between her teeth while she concentrates. The screen is not angled toward him, but he still catches a few words in her report—something about a Dimension Cannon and quantum theory and an astronomy survey.

Curious. Probably all stuff he should ask her about later.

She looks up when he enters. Her eyes lock with his. Her mouth opens and tongue retreats, but no words come out. The Doctor hears her swallow. She stands up, brushing and fidgeting at her shirt, and turns to face him. She waits for the Doctor to speak.

He tries to think of the words to say, but his brain and mouth are stupid and he can't blame his voicelessness on the Entity this time. Instead he just stands there, his mind racing fruitlessly, his labored breathing just loud enough to be embarrassing. But he rather feels he should be cut a bit of slack on that last point—post-running stitches are only to be expected after a traumatic healing coma, superior Time Lord biology or no.

How is she here?

She looks worried. He should probably tell her he's not upset that she shot him. She did what she had to, and she was right; he understands that better than anyone.

As for Sky…she had been dead for some time even before the bullet got to her. He hopes Rose knows that.

The Doctor starts to take a step toward Rose, thinking that maybe, by the time he reaches her, something useful will come out of his mouth, but she takes the smallest step back. He stops. He starts to ask what's wrong, why she's looking at him like that. Like he's something she should be wary of. Then he looks her over, and he sees the pink-red bruises on her wrist, the darker contusions on her throat, injuries in the shape of a familiar hand.

He remembers. And he feels the blood drain from his face.

She must be terrified of him now.

His shoulders slump. She has every right to fear him. Maybe even hate him. She came all this way, probably mostly for him, if he's being honest, and he hurt her. In more ways than one. Wounds that run deep in body and spirit. He knows from personal experience that that last sort of wound is usually the worst. His guilt and self-hatred multiplies tenfold. No wonder she's been hiding from him.

Approximately four point seven seconds pass. The Doctor considers opening with a joke. Giving himself some emotional and physical distance. Got to keep those walls up. She'd probably play along. Or he could take a totally different tack and ask how she managed to get back here. He really is terribly curious about that. He could tell her he wants to know what she's been up to all this time. That he wonders how long it's been for her, stuck in a parallel universe with a different time process. He could ask how she and her team found him, how they knew he was in trouble, if she figured it out via psychic paper somehow—she must still have it on her, must have had it with her when she got pulled into the other universe; that's really the only reasonable explanation for its disappearance two years ago, he thinks. It may very well still have some connection to its mate floating around in his coat-pocket somewhere. He could inquire about whether she and her team ever found out what the Entity was, if he decides he ever wants to know. He should probably find out if she's going back to the other universe for good now that the crisis is solved; he knows, somewhere down in the pit of his stomach, that he should let her go if she wants. But he doesn't want her to leave. Not at all. Not even for one second, at least not until she knows how genuinely delighted he is to see her again. The happiness that should have filled him earlier floods him now, washes over him until he thinks he might drown in it, eases just a tiny bit of the dread and guilt he feels for actions that, even if they weren't really his, were still performed by his hands. He wants to extend one hand and issue a third invitation for life aboard the TARDIS—Donna won't mind a third traveler. It's a big ship and Donna knows loneliness just as deeply as he does. He thinks, perhaps, that he could regale Rose about how he doesn't believe in soulmates, but he does believe in the energy of consciousness and matching timeline fluctuations and perfect repeating patterns and how through the beauty of some Fibonaccian fractal, some pieces just fit together, and he could hope that she would find herself in his explanation somewhere.

He could ask her to stay.

"Rose..." he starts to say, but nothing else follows, because even after everything that's happened, he just can't bring himself to say any of it, he has control over his body and speech again but he can't, _he just can't_, and dear heavens, but he feels stupid right now.

Rose doesn't say anything at all, but her expression softens. She crosses the room and wraps her arms around him in a hug.

It takes him a moment to realize exactly what's happening, but once his brain catches up, he remembers to respond in kind, pulling her in even tighter, fingers curling into the fabric of her shirt. She tucks her head under his chin and he feels her breath against his neck, soft and warm and even. He wonders if this is an apology, and he accepts it. He wonders if it's forgiveness, and he'll take that too.

He wonders if this is goodbye and hopes, desperately, that it isn't.

He thinks maybe he should tell her that. Tries to see if he can find the words anywhere. He still can't. With everything that's happened over the last few days, he's just a little addled, more than a little tired, and a lot overwhelmed. He feels a resurgence of understanding for his broken and battered ninth self and knows it isn't fair to expect Rose to put him back together all over again, but he's hopeful that she'll be willing to help, and she'll just know, and he thinks she might be just a little bit broken and in need of repair herself, and god he's missed her. So he stands back just far enough that she won't strain her neck when he frames her face in his hands and pulls her up for a kiss.

Because he thinks that they ought to share one where they're both in their right mind, for once, and because he's too tired to think any better of it and remind himself all the reasons why not, and because if this doesn't tell her all she needs to know, then nothing will.

Rose is hesitant at first, taken by surprise when his lips meet hers, but she quickly warms up to the idea, arms wandering up to his chest and fingers wrapping around his shirt collar and pulling him snug against her. His eyes closed, he just lets himself enjoy everything for a moment the way he wasn't able to before. The feel and the smell and the taste of it all. He hopes she's enjoying it too, and his hopes are confirmed when he opens his mouth just a little further, exploring just a little bit more, and she lets out a small and happy hum. The kiss is very sweet, both with the sugar-taste of Rose's lipgloss and the catharsis of _finally_.

Fifteen point seven seconds later, the kiss slows and stops. The Doctor realizes that he lost track of time about half a second in.

Rose has to break the kiss to catch her breath. Her cheeks are flushed and she isn't quite able to meet his eyes. She buries her head under his chin once again, her arms trapped between them as he reaches down to embrace her once more. He feels her heart beating madly against one of his, tapping out a message in Morse code at 105 beats per minute.

"Yeah," Rose says softly. Her voice is muffled by his badly-buttoned shirt. "I missed you too."

** end **


End file.
